“When the world is destroying our
future with economic sanctions, then they have no right to worry about
our past. I called my headquarters, I asked them, why are they going to
blow the statues, and I talked to the head of the council of scholars of
people, who had actually decided this. He told me that UNESCO and an NGO
from Sweden, or from one of these Scandinavian countries Norway, Sweden,
one of these they had actually come with a project of rebuilding the face
of these statues, which have worn by rain. The council of people told them
to spend that money in saving the lives of these children, instead of spending
it to restore these statues. And these guys said, 'No, this money is only
for the statues.' And the people were really pissed off. They said that,
if you don't care about our children, we are going to blow those statues.
If you were in such a situation what would you do? If your children are
dying in front of your eyes, and you are under sanctions, and then the
same people who have imposed sanctions are coming and building statues
here? What would you do?”

This account was in fact confirmed
by the careful “rebuttal” from State Department spokesman Richard Boucher
on March 20, 2001, who called the allegations “inaccurate and self-serving.”
He could not say that Hashmi was lying and no such incident had taken place
before the decision to destroy the statues. Rather his defense was that
although the NGO's had gone there with the obscene idea of renovating statues
in the midst of death, as Hashmi said, but some other NGOs were also providing
some money to the people!

Now Mr. Varadarajan is informing
us that the offers of money for the protection of the statues were made
after the Taliban announced they would destroy the un-Islamic idols. I
would like to think that he is merely confused about the later offers of
money and ignorant of the original NGO project. But his solemn assertions
and air of certainty make one wonder whether his confusion was elsewhere;
that while his parents sent him to school to become a lawyer, he got confused
and instead became a liar.

The identification badges have
been compared with the Nazi tagging of Jews by a fierce propaganda machine.
It is a minor detail that the Hindus who had left Afghanistan during the
civil war came back after the Taliban take over, precisely because of the
peace and protection they provided.

After having “destroyed” the character
and credibility of the accused, Mr. Varadarajan then proceeds to convict
him for a conspiracy to commit genocide. Here again the truth is stranger
than fiction. Here is the real story. In Afghanistan, there are laws applicable
to Muslims only. The Ministry of Vice and Virtue is responsible for enforcing
those laws. As part of the enforcement, they have to catch the violators
and bring them to justice. As you can imagine, sometimes non-Muslims, especially
Hindus, since they are indistinguishable, get caught unjustly. To avoid
that the local Hindus discussed with the Taliban ways of protecting them
from such enforcement efforts. That was two years ago. Over this period
various proposals were discussed and finally they agreed on the identification
badge. The badge would mean that Ministry officials are not to bother the
wearer. The identification is only for the purpose of granting exemption
where it is due. Is that bad? Ask the Hindu and Sikh community leader in
Afghanistan, Inder Singh Majboor, who said they are happy with the ruling.
[BBC].

The identification badges have been
compared with the Nazi tagging of Jews by a fierce propaganda machine as
is done in this article. It is a minor detail that the Hindus who had left
Afghanistan during the civil war came back after the Taliban take over,
precisely because of the peace and protection they provided. The propaganda
machine has been looking very hard for any incident that could be termed
as "persecution" and has not been able to find any. If one Hindu had been
maltreated by the Taliban that would have been headline news.

So much for the “tyranny” of the
Taliban. On the other hand there are some real problem areas in the world
today.

Perhaps Mr. Varadarajan knows about
a country by the name of Israel where the occupation army requires the
Palestinians to carry identification cards that identify their religion
for the purpose of persecution. By law non-Jews are second-class citizens
in that country.

The identity cards “mark one's nationality
as Jewish or Arab and are thus used as a basis to discriminate,” writes
an American Jewish student in Tikkun, a progressive Jewish journal. Similarly
the Palestinian car license plates are required to be a distinct color
so police can shoot them easily.

His humanity forces Mr. Varadarajan
to think of ways to “protect” the 500 Hindus who are happily living in
Kabul. Perhaps he knows about a country by the name of India that has so
far killed 60,000 Kashmiris for the crime of being Muslim and demanding
self-determination.

Or is he the Citizen of a World,
which chooses to show its "civility" by condemning imaginary crimes by
Muslims rather than the real crimes against them.